Scientists Have Recreated The Core Of Jupiter On Earth

What happens when
scientists focus the world's largest laser onto a tiny
diamond?Matt
Swisher

Planets and stars form as gravitational forces pull material
together. We know that the pressure within these celestial bodies
must be very great, but until now, scientists didn't know what
happened to materials at those pressures.

July 16, scientists announced they had successfully compressed a
diamond, "the least compressible material" we know of, up to
pressures at the core of Saturn and Jupiter. They published their
report in the
journal Nature.

The diamond was subjected to 50 million atmospheres of pressure
(the air above us equals one atmosphere), or 14 times the
pressure at the center of Earth, causing the diamond to compress
fourfold.

Since carbon is the fourth most abundant element in our universe
— and diamonds are made of carbon — the findings are also a start
to answering questions about how planets like Jupiter formed four
billion years ago, study researcher Rip Collins told Business
Insider.

While no one knows what the core of Jupiter or Saturn is made of
yet, "[B]eing able to recreate core conditions within the lab
will allow us to address fundamental question such as whether or
not the core is liquid or solid," Collins said.

Under Pressure

Until now, scientists could only rely on theoretical models to
guess what might happen at the core of these planets, as while as
data from a few other experiments.

While other researchers had achieved pressures like this before,
they had done so using different methods which left the
compressed material up to 10 times hotter than Jupiter's actual
core (which is about 17,000 to 35,000 degrees F), Collins said.

This time around, by using a method
initially dreamt up for nuclear fusion research, researchers
were able to achieve the same 50 million atmosphere pressures,
but at temperatures only a few thousand degrees F below Jupiter's
core temperature.

So how does one compress the least compressible material on
Earth? "We just squish harder," Collins said. It is crudely
similar to being in a packed subway train. Just when you think
you couldn't possibly squeeze in tighter, everyone readjusts and
manages to fit.

Scientists still don't know how the atoms look inside the
diamond, or how the readjustment happens, but they have
definitely got the squishing down.

How to "squish harder"

In order to compress the diamond, scientists relied on the
world's largest laser, which you actually might be familiar with.

The laser is actually 176 laser beams that launch onto the
apparatus at the center of the facility, which you can see below.

Collins et al

The diamond is put on the side of a one centimeter high "can" at
the end of the cone. Here is a zoom in of the diamond.

Collins et al

The ultraviolet lasers (blue) are then shot into the top and
bottom ends of the can. The can converts the ultraviolet light
into x-rays, essentially turning the can into a "very uniform
x-ray oven," Collins said. The red light is what the scientists
use to measure how the diamond is changing.

Collins et al

The x-ray bath causes a series of reactions which send pressure
waves inside the diamond, compressing it.

The trick, said Collins, is that the team can tell the laser to
increase its intensity slowly so the material doesn't heat up all
at once. Previous methods compressed the material much faster,
heating it too much.

From Diamonds To Planets

The entire process lasts all of a few nano-seconds, at the end of
which, the diamond explodes (sadly there is no video of it, we
asked). But the scientists observed surprising results.

"We didn't think [the diamond] would become so stiff. It was
supposed to get harder and harder to compress, but not quite as
fast as it does with increasing pressure," Collins said.

The material may not even be considered a diamond anymore, he
said.

Scientists can use observations like this to continuously improve
models of how material acts at the center of planets like Jupiter
and Saturn.

Fifteen years ago, chemistry text books told you that if you
squish something, you end up with a tighter version of that
something, Collins said in a Nature news podcast.
" You end up with a very simple close packed system," he said.

"Just recently, there's really a new wave of thinking about how
materials might behave at these conditions," he said. "Materials
may not be simple and, in fact, may evolve into something that is
much more complicated."